This is a book like no other you will ever read. Conventional
publisher you will find none. The simplest tools and methods were employed in
its production, as explained below.

In 1994, for the fiftieth anniversary of the departure
from Drancy of Convoy 73, the Association "The Sons and Daughters of the Jewish
Deportees of France" led by Serge Klarsfeld, took advantage of the recent independence
of Lithuania to undertake a journey of remembrance to a number of the former
extermination camps situated in Eastern Europe, including that in Kaunas (formerly
Kovno) in Lithuania and Tallinn (formerly Reval) in Estonia.

Separately in May of the same year a group of approximately
ten families placed in the newspaper "Le Monde" a formal notice to mark the passing
of this sad milestone. I personally put a notice in the same newspaper to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of the death of my father Abraham
Cherchevsky, one of the deportees.

Following the publication of these notices, a second
voyage was organised in 1995 to the deportation sites. Seventeen people, a collection
of fathers, brothers and husbands (including a survivor of the Convoy) took
part, representing a total of fourteen deportees.

Returning in the plane to Paris, a member of he group
suggested that a "small booklet " be written recounting our journey, illustrated
with the photographs we had taken; in it would appear a brief biography of those
deportees we represented. The plan was voted through unanimously. Three years
passed before it was finally produced.